As a dentist, you perform an extensive amount of cavity fillings, examinations, and procedures in any given week, all while juggling patients and the daily operations of your practice.
Given how busy the life of a dentist can be, it’s rare to find time to manage your website and social media pages — let alone a blog. But in the coming months and years, a dental blog may be one of the most essential tools you can use to market your practice.
What can a blog do for your dental practice, and how do you start one? Read on to find out.
Fresh Content Improves Ranking
A blog serves as a resource for patients to find answers and learn about oral health, dental procedures, and anything related to the field. But a blog is also a strategic platform that websites can utilize to boost their ranking on search engines.
Fresh content is the top SEO ranking factor right now, and with Google’s Freshness algorithm, websites that continually produce new content will have better visibility on local search engine results pages (SERPs) than outdated sites.
Unless you’re introducing a new service or procedure, there’s not always new content you can publish on your web pages. That’s where a blog comes in. While there’s no shortage of dental-related content you can create (and we’ll explore some ideas in a moment), anytime you publish new blog content, your website attracts web crawlers. The more content there is to index, the fresher and more relevant your website will seem in the eyes of Google.
Provide Answers & Useful Information
With four in five consumers using search engines to find local information, patients are not only searching for nearby dentists. They’re also asking search engines about their symptoms, the procedures they’re interested in, and about oral health in general.
When brainstorming content for your dental blog, let your audience inspire you!
As a dentist, which questions do you get asked every day by patients? What types of brushing and flossing mistakes do you see your patients make? How can they improve their oral hygiene habits, diet, and lifestyle?
When it comes to writing about specialized services, there are even more answers and information you can provide. Keep content around 500 to 800 words so that readers receive the information they need with ease.
Demonstrate Your Expertise
How should you write and format your blog content?
With Google’s recent BERT update, it’s better to write content in natural, conversational language. Phrasing content as questions, and providing immediate answers, is a good rule of thumb to follow. After presenting the important information first, allow your blog posts to flow into other related topics.
If you’re the dentist who can provide patients with solid, friendly, and immediate answers, you’ll leave good, lasting impressions. Plus, by providing solutions and answers, you’ll also demonstrate your expertise and build trust with your readers.
What could be better than that?
By delving deeper into other dental-related topics, you’ll also optimize your content for semantic search, which is an important component to user experience.
Optimize for Semantic Search
Let’s say you were to write a blog post about teeth whitening. After exploring the procedure and answering the important questions first, you could then explore the issue of tooth sensitivity. Tooth sensitivity is a common concern that patients often have, and it’s a topic many patients will research prior to treatment.
Why would a blog post like this help you optimize for semantic search?
No longer does Google focus on every online query individually. Because of semantic search, Google factors in context and user search history when personalizing SERPs. A blog post about teeth whitening and tooth sensitivity would likely appear in results for someone who has looked up both topics simultaneously.
Show What Your Dental Practice Is All About
Your practice is unique, and your dental blog should reflect what sets you apart from other offices in your area.
Are you a family dentist with a kid-friendly office and waiting room? Do you offer cosmetic services that other offices do not? When patients suffer from sleep apnea, TMJ disorders, or periodontal disease, are you the dentist they call for help?
It’s beneficial to cover all topics related to the dentistry field so you’re optimizing your practice to the broadest extent. But treat your blog as an opportunity to hone in on your brand and show the public what you can do and the experience they’ll receive when they sit in your chair.
Start Your Dental Blog & Create Happier Smiles
With the new decade underway and big changes happening in digital marketing, how will you brush up your website and optimize it for success?
If you’re ready to integrate a dental blog as part of your digital marketing strategy, let us help you build it into something you’ll smile about. Learn more about our blogging services and how you can get started today!
